I mean, they're hardly blameless.

They never had a proper mandate or real power to do anything, so it was mostly bullshit (see canceling software contracts) and the administration/Elon deserves criticism for pretending otherwise merely for PR.

It should have been something that they pushed congress to establish as a new agency or heavily expand the OMB with a wider purpose/budget. That way it would have included careful public monitoring under existing rules and been able to take on DoD/education/healthcare spending which is where 90% of it goes.

But everyone knows Congress doesn't want any more people questioning where the money is going. Half their job is gaming the system to push federal money into their states. So DOGE was left with fake data collection jobs while feds fired probationary workers to pretend it saves money.